Most big companies have set goals for incremental improvements — 25 percent of this by 2025, 30 percent reduction in that by 2030. It won’t be enough to actually solve climate change — and it won’t be enough to satisfy rapidly shifting consumer expectations.
Here’s why: As my friend Holli Alexander at Eastman wisely noted, Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms and stripped us of so many privileges that we thought we couldn’t live without but that she needs us to live without — driving, flying, even meat-eating. And indeed, reports out now show that our CO2 emissions since the beginning of this year have dropped by 17 percent compared to last year.
But reports also say that it’s not enough. The prediction is that by the end of this year we will have reduced emissions between 4.4 to 8 percent, but we need to reduce emissions by 7.6 percent every year between now and 2030 to keep temperatures from rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Said another way: We’d have to stay in the kind of devastating lockdown we’re in right now, with skyrocketing unemployment, to actually save the planet.
That, obviously, is untenable. Which is why corporate sustainability needs to change.
Companies — and obviously governments — need to radically reimagine the future and their very real role in both preserving the planet and society. And they are linked, by the way; it’s not a forced choice. If we choose to simply get people back to work and not deal with climate, eventually climate change will devastate society as we know it. And, besides, what COVID-19 has pulled the curtain back on is just how fragile and unsustainable our society really is for most people. Read more…
